Lady Colts looking for continued success

Philip Barbour has strong numbers at 35

Tony Baisi

For The Inter-Mountain

tbaisi1975@gmail.com

The Inter-Mountain photo by Tony Baisi
The Philip Barbour Lady Colt Soccer squad is ready to begin the 2019 campaign.

PHILIPPI — The Philip Barbour Lady Colts soccer squad is coming into the 2019 season with designs on picking up where it left off a season ago when it posted a record of 12 wins, 5 losses and 2 ties.

Accolades from 2018 for PB include a nine-game win streak, and a 3-2 victory over rival Elkins in the Class AA/A Region II Section 2 title game on George Byrer Field at BC Bank Park. The Colts eventually fell, 3-1, to Robert C. Byrd in the region final in Bridgeport.

Veteran head coach Pete Ferguson is entering his 18th season at the helm, and was a co-head coach for three seasons before that when the program began in the late 1990s.

“We have 35 girls out for the team this year, that breaks the previous record of 33,” Ferguson said. “This group is ahead of schedule. I hope we pick up where we left off last year and avoid a slow start. Last year we took a couple early losses that I don’t think would have happened later on in the season. I think the girls will do a better job of finishing games this year.”

The Lady Colts are returning a lot of talent to the roster this year, and Ferguson noted that several players could make an impact.

“In the defense, Brittany Lawrence and Emma Poling are both returning,” he said. “Brittany is a senior and has been a starter all four years, and another senior, Bella Hubbard, is back there with her as well, so the defense should be strong. And of course Cloie (Mossesso) is a senior and going to be in her third year as our starting keeper, so we’re also hoping for a good year from her.”

On offense, Philip Barbour will not be short of weapons as several strong players will look to spend as much time as possible in the attacking third of the pitch.

“We have Payton (Gregory) in the midfield, kind of directing traffic,” said Ferguson. “Then we have forward Braylynn Travis who scored a lot of goals for us as a sophomore last year, and I expect her to keep that up. Lydia Phillips scored big goals for us last year, and she’s just a sophomore this year.

“It’s really pretty spread around on offense,” he said. “We didn’t have one or two people with a lot of goals, we had a lot of goals from a lot of people last year. Another senior, Hayley Gribble, she takes some good shots and is really strong in the middle.

“My starting lineup is just really strong,” said Ferguson. “I could talk about each one of them, and it’s all positive.”

Philip Barbour will begin the season on the road Friday with a 6 p.m. match at Braxton County.